Rocky Road

To celebrate our fifth anniversary (wow – where have the past 5 years gone?!) we headed to Berlin. The plan was to go to Italy, but it is expensive, and at the moment we are watching our pennies a little bit (just a little though…..)

So on Wednesday night we headed off to the German capital. I have been to Berlin before (about 7 years ago) and loved it, so was looking forward to sharing it with Stocky. He, however, had heard so many people say great things about the city, I think he was thinking he would go and dislike it. I am happy to say, however, that he too fell in love with the city, and it has been added to the list of European cities we would like to live in. The big downside of Berlin, though, is our inability to read or understand the German language! So perhaps we can get our friend Tina to move there and we can just go and visit her often!

I’m not sure what it is about Berlin that we like. Whether it be the history (so much of it, and so recent), the numerous outdoor parks, the plentiful reasonably-priced cafes, how bike-friendly it is, the large number of boutique stores or a combination of all these things and much more. We spent most of our three days there wandering various areas of Berlin, taking it in, and feeling a part of the local scene.

We did do a bit of sight-seeing, but there are a heap of the “must do’s” that we didn’t do!
On Thursday morning we did a free walking tour (they make money via tips only) which is a great way to see the main sights, get your head around some of the history and get a feel for the layout of the city. I would highly recommend doing this tour if you go to Berlin. Then that night we went out to dinner to celebrate our anniversary and celebrate it we did. Cocktails galore! So we were a little bit late on getting up on Friday morning….

We did check out the exhibition under the Holocaust memorial (its proper name is Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe but that seems a little bit too much for me) on Friday though. It was a really good exhibition and put faces and stories to the atrocities that happened throughout Europe during WWII, but not something that you come away skipping from.

On Saturday was the big football game – Germany vs Argentina. We kind of got how big the game could be when we went out for dinner on Friday night. Every cafe and restaurant had big screens in their windows, or TV sets out on the street, and tables were set up out on the pavement and they were packed, and people were even just standing around and watching games from across the street. And this wasn’t even Germany playing! (Now it may also have helped that the temperatures didn’t drop below 30C while we were there, so perhaps people would have sat outside and watched anything just to try and keep cool!) So on Saturday we headed to Tiergarten to join the masses wearing red, yellow and black. Our photos don’t do the number of people or the festivities justice – but check out some photos from around Germany here. Quite a party, and to make it better they won!

We were going to check out the Reichstag while the game was on, thinking there would be less people in the queue. But, of course all the tourists didn’t care about the game and the queue was just as long as ever!! So will have to leave that tour for our next trip.

There were a number of times over the time we were there where I thought, I should take a photo, but we were just enjoying the atmosphere and feeling (kind of) like a local. But here are some photos from our excursions.

Stocky shows off his “guns” as he tries to cool down a little while we walk around the city

One of our favourite travelling past-times – lying in parks and reading or playing games on our phones (and trying to take photos with the camera!)

The Berlin Wall – or at least where it used to be.

This needs no statement really – Brandenburg Gate

The Holocaust Memorial

Old meets new – parts of the Berlin Wall in front of the new (and glassy and rather ugly) Potsdamer Platz station

Graffiti is everywhere, but I love it!

This tickled my fancy (and perhaps my ovaries!). Little bikes all chained up outside a kindergarten. They sure like to ride in Berlin.

A neat cafe (although one we didn’t eat at) at an old train station that used to serve goods between the East and West parts of Berlin.

For some reason I can imagine dance parties still taking place on this boat.

A fantastic sculpture in the River Spree (with some slightly drunk Germans under it in a small hired boat which had a BBQ and drinks on board….)

‘Nuff said!

We are just back from a 2-week whirlwind trip to our beautiful homeland, New Zealand. It was so lovely to catch up with so many friends and family, but I am pretty sure that next time we will come for longer. It would be nicer to actually sit, relax and enjoy the company of all the people we saw for only a brief amount of time.

While we were there, we borrowed my aunty’s campervan and drove from Auckland to Wellington and back. We are quite keen on the idea of buying a campervan over here in the UK, and to be honest that experience in NZ has just increased our keeness!

It is so nice to drive along and when you feel like it, stop, throw open the back doors and have a cup of tea

or a mandarin

or breakfast

or just read a book
.

And then there are the amazing places you can stay at night

And the amazing NZ landscape you get to see as you drive by

As we drove along we kept exclaiming about how beautiful NZ was, but when we actually asked each other if we wanted to move back just yet, the answer is a clear no!
It really is a fantastic country with so many great people we love and miss, and the scenery is amazing, but at the moment there is just so much to see and do for us on this side of the world, that we will stay here for a bit longer….

Waiting in line for the Pearl Jam concert last year, we got talking to another Kiwi couple and they told us (among many other things) about their trip to Belgium for Anzac Day. And it is something that sat well for us. We don’t like the idea of Gallipoli on Anzac Day as that is just too full of drunk Kiwis and Australians. Belgium sounded a bit more sombre and more in our style of weekend trips!

So with Anzac Day being on a weekend this year, we took the opportunity to head away, and I am glad we did.

We took the Eurostar to Lille on Friday night, and headed off in our rental car to Belgium early on Saturday morning (well 9am is early for us!). Lille is really close to the Belgium border and so we were there in no time. As we drove across the border where the border buildings still stand (even though they are no longer needed thanks to the formation of the EU), I had to think how lucky we are to get so easily from one country to the next, and how foreign that would be to someone who hasn’t been to Europe.

We stopped in a small town just over the Belgian border to grab some food for breakfast. But we couldn’t find a bank, so had to walk to the town in France to get money out! Some yummy pain-o-chocolat, a baguette and our first strawberries and raspberries of the season kept us happy.

Our first real tourist stop was in Westvleteren, to the monastery which brews the best beer in the world (or so it was voted at some point!). We had been planning to buy some beer (as it is really sought after so is extremely difficult to find in shops in Belgium, let alone anywhere else in the world) but unfortunately it was closed as the monks were having a rest day (and NOT on a Sunday!).
So we just enjoyed the beer in the sun instead.

What was amazing to me as we drove through the countryside, was just how many WWI cemeteries there are in the area. They come in all shapes and sizes, some marked, others not, but you find it very hard to get away from them. Normal farming life takes place around them, but they must always be a constant reminder to the past to those who live here.

One cemetery we did stop off at, and spent a lot of time at was Tyne Cot Cemetery, the largest British war cemetery in mainland Europe. Nearly 12,000 Commonwealth soldiers are buried there, some with names, others with battalion names and yet further unmarked. A symbol for each country is on the top of each stone.

In this one you can see Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Scotland.

The cemetery is amazingly laid out, with flowers by each row, and it is easy to spend time just wandering through the rows looking at the headstones.

At the back of the cemetery is the list of British solders for whom there is no grave, and whose name couldn’t fit on the Menin Gate in Ypres. [The Menin Gate is HUGE and it is a very stark reminder to think that this huge memorial could not list all the names of those who went missing. The Menin Gate lists 55,000 soldiers....]

At Tyne Cot there is also a separate NZ memorial area, where all the NZ missing are listed.

From the cemetery we headed up to the NZ Memorial commemorating the Battle of Broodseinde. Its in the middle of pretty much no-where, but is amazingly well kept. We were thoroughly impressed by the state of all the memorials and cemeteries.

On the way back to our B&B (called Haere Mai, but owned by locals!) we stopped at a museum which seemed to have a few people hanging about. It turned out they were having a bit of an exhibition of life during WWI and had people dressed in French, Belgium and British army uniforms. We loved the British – just like Dad’s Army!

Then after a quick nap at our B&B we headed into Ypres to look at the Menin Gate, to be there for the last post which takes place at 8pm at the gate and take in the small town.

Ypres was totally demolished during WWI, but has been rebuilt in the original style. It’s a really nice little town.

The Last Post Association has closed the road through the Menin Gate, and played the last post every night since 1928, bar during the Second World War.
It was 8pm, the sun was starting to go down and the area under the gate was pretty much filled with people. It is an amazingly moving tribute, and wasn’t helped by there also being bag pipers playing Amazing Grace (which always makes me cry!) for some Scots Guards who were there.

Stocky and I have said we would like to come back in the middle of winter to be a part of it again. I imagine that in winter there won’t be quite the crowd we had on Saturday night and the last post will be much more poignant and eery in the dark and the cold.

On Sunday morning we headed to the New Zealand War Memorial in Messines for a morning service. Messines is a (very) small town that the New Zealand troops helped to liberate as part of the Battle of Messines. As such, there is even a Nieuwzeelanderstraat (New Zealand street)!

I was amazed at how many people were there for the service, and it felt good to be a part of the NZ community on the otherside of the world.

The road up there was pretty tiny though….

Then we headed to the Peace Pool, which is one of the craters that formed following the Battle of Messines, where the Allies blew up the countryside. It is a pretty idyllic place these days….

Then it was back to Ypres to meet up with the Aussies and take part in an ANZAC ceremony at the Menin Gate. A procession, led by a band, formed at the Ypres town hall and then we all marched down to the Menin Gate where there were a few readings, the last post, the laying of wreaths and the singing of national anthems.

After a stroll around the town we headed back into the countryside, and this time to a German cemetery. The difference in the Commonwealth cemeteries and the German one was startling. Commonwealth have white stone headstones and flowers and it feels light and bright. The German one had dark stone under large trees which cast a shadow over the whole place.
(Although it did start to spit a little at the German cemetery so that may not have helped the vibe!)

This cemetery (Deutscher Soldatenfriedhof) has about 45,000 German soldiers buried here, of which nearly 25,000 are in a mass grave as you walk in. Then there are the headstones around the area, each which names from one to about 16 soldiers. That last photo has all the soldiers dying pretty much on the same day…

So we headed back to Lille and then back home to London (3 countries in one day!) feeling a little sombre, but for me anyway, feeling I have a better understanding of WWI and what happened in that area.

It was a weekend that I won’t forget, and allowed us to reflect on how lucky we are to live the life we do. And to hope that such a war will not be repeated again.

I think our trip to the French Alps over Easter has just fueled Stocky’s addiction to snow and his desire to be a Snowboard Bum for a season.

I must admit it was a great trip, and we couldn’t have asked for better conditions from a Spring snow trip if we had tried. We headed away with 3 friends, flying into Geneva and then driving a rental car to the little village of Les Brevieres, at the bottom of the Tignes resort.

There were also a group of about 5 others that we knew some of so it was quite a social time (although I was my usual afternoon nap, early bed-time self!). Most of these 5 were really good skiers and snowboarders, so Stocky had a bit of time with them doing some more challenging runs and off-piste fun. I too improved, and managed to head down the red runs fairly easy at the end of the 5 days.

On the fourth day it just dumped down with snow all day, and Stocky managed 7 hours up in the beautiful powder. I spent the morning walking around the village and relaxing and taking photos!

But I did head up for a few runs in the afternoon.

The next day (our last) was a fantastic blue sky day and it was so much fun to ski in beautiful powder with clear visibility and sun on your back.

Leaving the mountain like that does make you think you could just spend your life on the skifields!

Usually it is Stocky’s domain to write about our trips to the snow. He did it last year and the year before. However, he has decided that the blog isn’t needed as we are no longer being tourists, we are just living our lives. But I know the fans would be dissapointed if we stopped (even if they don’t write comments!) so I take it as my duty to write something here! (And no, I am not being a martyr!)

Actually I think we can let the photos tell the story as there were the same ingredients as the last 2 years – snow, sun, raclette, chocolate mousse and red wine, fun, sleeps and deep heat.
This year, though, we had Stocky’s brother, Josesph, to share in the fun. The 2 boys took off for fun in the snow parks, and I continued to enjoy my time on the skis, slowly criss-crossing the mountain! This year we took the train there and back and as usual, enjoyed it as a mode of transport. It also meant we got to spend all 7 days on the slopes – talk about being tired today!